The editors of Professional Mariner have presented this year’s Plimsoll Awards for Outstanding Service to a maritime academy professor who is an advocate for safer towing operators, to an organization dedicated to modernizing the nation’s inland navigation infrastructure and to a company that has developed an electronic collision-avoidance system.

Inadequate communication between the pilot and master about approaching the docking basin or abort points in the voyage led to a bulk carrier crashing into a British Columbia coal terminal in 2012, Canada’s Transportation Safety Board said.

Deviation from the charted route to avoid another vessel and then failing to return to the original course led to the grounding of a tanker in the Canadian Arctic in 2012, investigators have determined.

An investigative report into the grounding of a Lake Erie ferry in 2012 revealed issues with the coordination of safety-critical activities in the port, the company’s safety management system and passenger emergency preparedness.

In protecting merchant ships from pirates, private armed guards have become a favorite tool. The guards and their weapons, however, present legal risks for the shipowner and master if something goes wrong.